12 May 2009
IRIS’ satisfaction ratings highlighted at the launch of the
Software Satisfaction Awards 2009
The launch of this year’s Software Satisfaction Awards
2009 at the BASDA Annual General Meeting raised some interesting
questions about what constitutes users’ 'software
heaven'.
Drawing on data collected over the last 3 years, John Stokdyk,
Technology Editor of Sift Media, pointed to the
evidence suggesting that software satisfaction is reliant on
continual innovation so that ‘customers can do more with less’. He
encouraged software developers to invest in making customer support
better and to ‘stay close to their customers so that their needs
are fulfilled, especially during a time of economic hardship’.
The emphasis that IRIS, the largest privately owned
software house in the UK, places on customer service was
highlighted in John’s address as he told the audience
”Historically, IRIS customers are amongst the happiest in the
industry. Despite an extremely demanding user base, the data
collected by our market surveys show that IRIS tax and accounting
products have enjoyed consistently high satisfaction ratings.”
The flagship award winning mid-range accounting product,
IRIS Exchequer and
the Drummohr range of tax software have
both been shortlisted in their product categories for the past 2
years. Drummohr won the tax and practice Software
Satisfaction Award in 2007 and IRIS Exchequer narrowly
missed out on winning the mid-market accounting Software
Satisfaction Award in 2008 by just 1/4 of a
point.
The sector specialism of the IRIS business model utilises a deep
knowledge of customers to enable a high degree of customer support
capability as well as the suitability of the products for each
market. Continual investment is demonstrated by IRIS’ recent
announcement that it is ploughing £20m in
2009 into R&D to deliver enhanced and new business
applications utilising Web 2.0, mobile technologies and engineering
for ‘Cloud Computing’ environments to meet the ever changing needs
of business.
IRIS strives to provide its 60,000 customers with the highest
levels of support with an emphasis on personal service.
This factor is recognised by success in independent
surveys conducted by professional bodies e.g. The Institute of
Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and award programmes
such as Cisco Customer Kings where the customer service for IRIS
payroll and the project management solution, IRIS PROJECTminder
were both highlighted as outstanding.
The Software Satisfaction Award survey opened on 1st May and it
is hoped that this year even more users will take part and express
their views on their software house. IRIS products entered for 2009
include: IRIS
Exchequer, IRIS Tax and IRIS Practice
Management, PTP and Drummohr tax products.